Then a funny thing
happened in the third season (1976-77). Buoyed by the addition of writer/producer
David Chase ("The Sopranos"), the stories got better, the audience numbers
steadied - and the show started winning awards.

Chase's versatility
breathed new life into "Rockford" with stories tackling everything from
social ills to Chase's own peculiar obsession with the mob. In the process,
Jim Rockford became reinvented as a sort of Everyman in a world of absurdities,
the lone voice in the wilderness willing to stand up and wonder just
what in hell's going on. The best example of this is the brilliant "So
Help Me God" (written by Juanita Bartlett), an indictment of the grand
jury system pitting Rockford against a weaselly federal prosecutor not
unlike Ken Starr. Lauded by law groups across the country, the episode
is also said to be one of James Garner's personal favorites, with good
reason - it won him the Emmy Award for Best Dramatic Actor in 1977.

The bar for "Rockford"
having been raised, the series would see some of its finest episodes
over the next three seasons: Bartlett's "The Paper Palace," introducing
Rita Moreno as Rita Capkovic, the ex-prostitute who's so lonely, she
wheels an empty shopping cart up and down the supermarket just to be
around people (Moreno won an Emmy for her performance); Cannell's "White
on White and Nearly Perfect," the first of two episodes featuring Tom
Selleck as the hilariously intrepid Lance White; and Chase's "Quickie
Nirvana," the show that won "Rockford" the Best Dramatic Series Emmy
in 1978.

Garner
chose to bring back "Rockford" in 1994 on CBS, rather than NBC, after
he was promised the network's best possible time slot: Sunday nights
after "Murder, She Wrote." Since CBS' demographics were older at the
time, Garner figured Angela Lansbury's audience was more than likely
to stick around for the "Files." The strategy paid off immediately.
The first new "Rockford," "I Still Love L.A.," finished in the Top Five,
and was the highest-rated TV-movie of the '94-95 season.

Strangely
enough, "Rockford"'s history on CBS has been a microcosm of its experience
on NBC. The next two movies, "A Blessing in Disguise" (1995) and "If
the Frame Fits . . ." (1996) suffer from the same problems of the original
show's second season: they play Rockford for a sap, and allocate far
too much screen time to the annoying Angel Martin (a character best
taken in small doses).

One
thing's different, though. NBC stayed with "Rockford" through thick
and thin. Not so CBS: once the ratings slipped, so did the network's
enthusiasm for the franchise. Subsequent movies found themselves scheduled
in suicidal time slots, while the network exerted absolutely no effort
to promote them.

Or
even schedule them (Garner filmed "If It Bleeds, It Leads" almost two
years before it was finally broadcast).

That's too bad,
because the last few "Rockfords" had been getting much better. Just
as the addition of Chase energized the original "Files," new talent
such as director Tony Wharmby and writer Reuben Leder had given the
show a second wind.

Though
CBS never officially pulled the plug on the series, Garner, now in his
seventies, saw the writing on the wall and decided to hang 'em up. "If
It Bleeds, It Leads," featuring Rita Moreno (once again as Rita Capkovic)
and Hal Linden, would be Rockford's last case.

The last Rockford
TV film aired on April 20th, 1999. Ratings were very good.

Ed Robertson
is the author of three books, including "This is Jim Rockford...," a
behind-the-scenes history of The Rockford Files available through Pomegranate
Press.

Click
on the book to order it now through AMAZON - you get a 20% discount!

You can e-mail Ed
at edsweb@slip.net or through his
web site, www.edrobertson.com.